I will try to keep this short, but would like to convey as much potentially valuable information as possible to future scheduled or possible visitors to Bonaire, in return for information that I gained from past reports here. This is from the view of four snorkelers, as opposed to divers, to keep it in perspective. This was our 4th trip, so we were familiar with the island.

Travel- Air Jamaica Baltimore-Montego Bay-Bonaire was great. Fairly uneventful; MoBay departure delayed about an hour waiting for east coast weather delayed connections, no real problem. Allow plenty of time for gate check in at Bonaire on departure-seems to take about 15 minutes per passenger; I'd recommend getting there at least 2 hours prior to departure...ALM does gate work, not really fast. All luggage made it both ways, meals and champagne were great.

Transportation-rented a minivan from Nettys. Good condition, clean, reasonable ($270/week).

Lodging-stayed at Sand Dollar for 4th trip. As always, nice, well maintained, visible security; totally adequate facilities.

Restaurants-as always, a highlight.
Richards-Best on island; get there early (6:30pm)for water side dining. Food excellent, broad menu for all tastes, service very good.
Compadres/Captain Wooks(@ Harbour Village)-good Mexican (try the fish/tuna fajitas...!) food, good service.
Croccantinos-good Italian food, fair to good service.
Den Lamen-a)lunch-the Green Parrot lives, it has just moved next door. Kirk (former Parrot manager, now part owner Den Lamen) and about 10 former Parrot employees are now here. Food good (the Parrot cheeseburger is still alive), service variable from fair to excellent. Setting (patio next to water edge) almost as nice as Parrot. We loved it.
b)dinner-evolving menu with move to fish/Caribbean menu. Good specials.
Kon Tiki (Lac Bai)-good lunch but didn't get back for dinner.
Lovers Ice Cream-all flavors good.
Piscas Ice Cream (Rincon) - excellent, very creamy.

Snorkel sites/beaches-
a) Nukove (north past oil tanks) difficult entrance, fair visibility, fair overall. Lots of parrotfish. Limited to one trip.
b)Sand Dollar/Bari easy sand entrance, fair to poor visibility, fish assortment fair to good , minimal bottom coral. One trip.
c) Windsock (at airport) easy sand entrance, fair to good visibility, fish assortment good
(Squid, trumpet, 3-4' parrotfish, etc.) 2 trips.
d) Margate (first paved pullover past Margate dive site) moderately difficult entrance over coral reef, good visibility excellent coral (fan, tube, all types and apparently healthy), fish assortment excellent (morays, turtles, everything...) Especially towards dropoff. 4 trips.
Best of trip.
e) Various-stopped at Lac Bai, Blue Hole-no snorkel attempted.
Did not get to Slagbaai (personal favorite from past trips).
Recommend Margate highly; use reef shoes or booties.

Crime-none. Used "Club" on car, used common sense as if we were in the states...

Damage assessment overall from wave surge-Piers gone (most planned for rebuilding according to those we spoke to), significant shallow bottom coral and growth gone from some parts of the center section of the island including Captain Don's, Sand Dollar, Pink Beach, Pink Beach now coral beach-still nice, but not a sand beach any more, Green Parrot gone (forever-lack of future insurance coverage). Some changes in island, nothing (really) significant (in my opinion). Overall assessment of November damage?
Sad, but get over it...there are still plenty of good sites and activities in Bonaire to keep you occupied. After the initial shock, we really did not focus on what used to be but what we could find new-and there was plenty.

We WILL go back again.

Sorry for the length, but feel free to respond.

As a followup-thanks to everyone who posted information on this site over the past months, especially Michael Gaynor (sorry I didn't get to meet you-BWI didn't have any New York Times...!)and Jake and Linda Richter. All information was helpful-now I'll try to help others for a while before logging out.

Thanks for the great report, there haven't been too many from the snorkelers point of view. Headed there in April and appreciate the comments on various sites. we have been there many times before and as you said it will be different but still wonderful. Can't wait to get there!

Thanks for the report. Do you think you could please go into a little more detail regarding snorkeling at Windsock? Had you been there on your previous trips? I know there are some of us who are fond of Windsock that have been hoping for information from a snorkeler's point of view. Thanks.

We had been there several years ago, so I don't remember it well.
I don't think there was very significant shallow coral damage at Windsock, although I understand that the beach was repaired significantly. Coral in 5-10' range appeared fairly healthy but stressed (white spots, etc.), from a non-expert point of view.
Good fish population everywhere.
Sand beach very nice (we were at North end).
Comfortable place for a picnic, with very good snorkelling. I'd still recommend it.

Thank you, John, your report is excellent and it is the kind of report we were waiting for. Very informative, and also makes us wish August was next week! :-)

Trip Report for Third week of February

Hello All!

We really relied heavily on the help of the newsgroup members while planning our trip (first) to Bonaire and want to try to give something back.
Here is our trip report to add a little to the great report above:

Travelled via ALM from Caracas (where we were visiting friends). Uneventful trip but be aware of the $20 US per person departure tax. Closed airport in Curacao the night before our trip meant delays in Curacoa (scheduled departure 11h30 AM actual 17h00. Rather chaotic ALM service, but we are Caribbean veterans!

Stayed at HHH and Louise and Mel could not have been more congenial hosts. Clean, quiet and economical accomodations, with a kitchen which is almost better equipped than our home kitchen! Reluctant to speak too highly of HHH as we are afraid that it will become too popular!! Though much had been said in the past re toilette paper and air conditioners, for the former we brought our own, and for the latter we had no need.

We had no problems with crime to speak of, though I must admit that the spectre of it did hamper our enjoyment during the trip. WE both snorkel and dive and so we had to arrange our outings so that everything that we brought out to the dive site we were able to take into the water with us. While this works for most things, it made excursions to the farther reaches of the island rather "single purpose", often having to deal with the fact that our video camera or still camera had to be left behind in the room for fear of getting them stolen.

Perhaps we overreacted but we followed the advice of others and had no bad experiences.

The island is beautiful and the snorkeling and diving was fantastic! I do underwater photography, while my wife snorkels, so we spent our time in water from 20-30 feet in depth and found it most enjoyable. While this was our first trip to Bonaire we can only imagine what the inshore reefs were like before Lenny! The reef has done what it was desiged by nature to do: Absorb the ocean's energy before it impacts the land. From all appearances, Bonaire reefs seem to have been spared the effects of major storms for quite a while and it seems that the nearhore reef became quite involved and vulnerable. From the amount of newly ejected coral on the beaches (some pieces already bleached white but others gray and brown from the decay of the attached tissue), a tremendous amount of energy must have been dissipated.

We particularly liked the Margate Bay area as well and dove there 5 time during our week's stay! Though the stony corals were quite damaged in the shallower areas, moving out toward the reef crest just before the wall (30-40 feet), things appeared much closer to normal. The seaward slope (60-70 feet) demonstrated considerable diversity in corals, both stony and soft, and a number of sponge species. Fish life was varied and appeared abundant, though herbivorous(algae eating) fish seemed to predominate. Space in the form of solid substrate is a hot commodity on a reef and healthy corals tend to deter algal growth, so the damage to the coral has likely permitted the algae to get the upper hand, at least in the short term. There were, however, signs of small 'islands' of coral in the inshore area so, barring any new meteorological catastrophies, things appear to be on the mend.

Car rental from Island Rentals: clean small car and dependable. Toyota Starlet Approx $260 US.

Tank rental: reasonable weekly rate from Photo Tours Divers. Approx. $100 US for tank, wts and belt. Friendly service, good advice on dive spots.

Fantastic 2 hr. slide service from Paradise Photo in town. $10 US. per roll.

Food is expensive, but not terribly so. We ate in most of the time as our Canadian dollar is only worth $0.66 US, but found that food was not over priced. Our one meal out (Food for 2 adults with beer, $35 US at Old Inn)was delicious. Great food (Indonesian)and attentive service.

Our lodging and car booking were done through Mr. Joe Bird and I applaud his efficiency and professionalism. Despite our rather last minute travel plans, he pulled it all off with aplomb, right down to having two of his staff at the airport to meet us when our greatly delayed ALM flight arrived from Curacao. Thanks Joe!

One last word regarding increased crime:
Locals stressed that this was a new phenomenon and the community was trying to deal with it, but I could not help but feel that a few private security guards on mopeds paid to cruise back and forth along the more popular stretches of beaches would offer a rather economical deterrant to the petty theives who might be looking for easy targets. Together with community oriented sentences (beach cleaning, etc) in disctinctive uniforms for those convicted of theft, this could help curb what has reported to be a growing problem.

Just my two cents worth. As an outsider I don't pretend to understand the culture and what would work there, but as a tourist I know that it is important to feel comfortable and relatively safe.

Finally, would we go back?

Definitely and we are already planning next year's trip!!

Snorkeling and diving are great and easy, the people are very nice ... and the flamingos are just SO impossibly pink against a backdrop of light green water and grey sky!!!

Sorry to ramble, I will try to respond to any questions,


Mitch and Josee

Dear Mitch & Josee,
Glad to hear about your trip. I knew you would fall in love with Bonaire once you were there,
Now you can understand why so many of us
return. I love to read trip reports from people who return and new comers as well. May is not that far away anymore.

Thanks for your great report. We live vicariously when we can't be there ourselves!

My opinion is you weren't overdoing it by making dive trips single-purpose trips and leaving the other belongings behind. Until there are guards or patrols at the remote dive sites, even a water bottle is fair game (to cite the only item that the thief stole from our rental car). Note: That doesn't spoil my fun on Bonaire and I can't wait to get back.

I will go to Bonaire the 27th of march 2000 up to the 5th of April 2000. It's my second visit and i'm wondering if anybody have some special advices to me and my ladyfriend. We're going especially for diving and the beaches. What's about Pink beach, my favorite of last year.

Hi Martin,

I envy you going back!

We have been back home in Canada for 3 weeks and miss it already!!

Unfortunately, we have not had the pleasure of seeing Pink Beach before Lenny, but there were many trucks and tractors working on it when we were there.

The beach that had had the most work done on it as far as we could tell was Windsock and it was quite nice, above water anyway! It will take a little while for mother nature to fix up the underwater part, though we found the snorkelling and diving to be very nice during our visit.

Good luck and have fun,

Mitch and Josee

thanks for your info, i will inform you bout the progress

Pink Beach was cleaned up. But the wave action hasn't put sand back yet. But the palm trees are there and there were a bunch of cars when we passed on weekends.

Note on crime -- fingerprints were taken (from what I understand this was something relatively new on Bonaire) after a house robbery. This is a step in the right direction.